Many different kinds of personal media players are known. As of the writing of this document, the iPod is perhaps the most ubiquitous personal media player. IPods are known which can play sound media (for example MP3s) and also show videos and pictures. However, other kinds of personal media players are also achieving wider acceptance. Many of the GPS devices in automobiles enable playing media; and/or cellular telephones also include the capability of playing media. Other portable and non-portable devices may also have analogous capabilities, e.g., PDAs with and without wireless, Internet appliances, e-mail devices such as blackberries, laptop computers and other devices.
A typical way of using such personal media player is by using a playing program which stores a library of the media that is the transferred to the device or removed from the device and stored in a database that allows recovery and/or playing of the media. For example, the program may have a database of MP3 files. A new MP3 file is added to the device by adding it to the program's work area, and the program then syncs the file on to the portable device. As the device fills, it may be desirable to remove MP3s from the device, and this can also be done using the program.
The media device can be controlled in other ways, e.g., directly over a user interface. While the above describes operation with MP3s, it should be understood that this same operation is also carried out with image files, e.g. JPEGs, and with video files.